Thursday, July 20, 2006

Summah Summah Summah

It turns everything upside down--schedules, eating habits, sleeping habits, housework, yardwork, and blogging. (Not that I've been regular for some time anyway, but still) But there are some great things about summer, and I thought I'd list a few.

1. Kids can wear whatever they want. And 99% of the time, I don't even care.



2. My yard is lookin good. I love good lookin yards. I got mine ready for a wedding, and it's just lovely (yes, that was a bright pink aisle and no, they didn't rappel from the treehouse). I should have a party. Would you come if I did? We could even have a pool party (see #5).


3. Toenail polish. Three letters, ladies: O-P-I ! This is the most amazing brand of toenail polish I've ever experienced in my thirty-some-odd summers. The stuff survives scuffs on swimmingpool bottoms, it wears for about a month, and the colors have great names. Right now I'm wearing "Charged-Up Cherry." I also picked up "Red Red Rhine" for 60% off. The first color I tried was "My Chihuahua Bites!" It was a great color, but a bit on the orange side for me. The only thing I've found that messes it up is if I hit it with my summer scent, Deep Woods Off. That kinda mucks it up and takes off the shine. So tuck the toes when scenting up for the evening. And yes, I call it TOEnail polish because I can't stand the stuff on my fingernails. Anyway, some of you may already know about O.P.I. Shame on you. How you could keep this a secret and not shout it from the rooftops, I'll never know. So now I have a new mission preachin the good word about O.P.I. Nail Laquer. If you don't have any, run (don't walk) to the nearest beauty store and getcha some sweet color for your toeseys.

4. Garden produce. Just made my first batch of zucchini bread. Mm-mm! And I love my yellow squash. And I have 2 cherry tomatoes that are orange, and have eaten one cucumber. None of the regular tomatoes are ripe yet, but my bushes are 100% better than last year (if any of you remember my last year's lament). Almost as good as my 90-year-old neighbor's.

5. Swimming. Got me one of those poor-man-swimmingpools. You know the ones. Big vinyl things with a blown-up ring to keep the top edge up. The company tries to make you feel really fancy by including a filter pump and you can even put in chemicals. We'll see how it goes, but I thought why not, since my kids are all tall enough now to reach the bottom--although I'm still fairly paranoid about kids and water. It was actually one of those keep-up-with-the-joneses purchases. I wasn't about to let my friend Neighborhood Watch have the corner on the pool market on our street. (I got the one the next size up) Plus it was on clearance.

6. Tan feet. They just look better that way.

7. Tan bodies. They look better that way, too.

8. Bedtime? What's that?

9. Bathtime? See #5.

10. Getting lost in a great book. I have always loved curling up in a chair and reading, reading, reading. The rest of the world can all just go to h___ when I'm reading (and my house usually does). I'm a shameless Harry Potter fan, and reading a HP book just seems like a summery thing to do, so since we all still have a while to wait for the final book, I took a day and a half and read #6 again. ***SPOILER WARNING*** (although if you haven't read it by now I'm guessing you just wont, which is fine) I read carefully this time through, and I think our double agent Snape will end up a good guy in #7 (Dumbledore knew about his unbreakable vow and plead for Snape to kill him, not for mercy) and Dumbledore is really and will stay dead, though his influence will still be there via his portrait in the headmaster's office and perhaps the penseive. I do wonder about all the phoenix imagery, though...***SPOILING FINISHED*** You may not be a Potter fan, but whatever your genre, I think summer is definitely the time to lose yourself in a book.

Well, there are loads of other great things about summer, but these are just the ones I've noticed in the last couple of days. Gotta go help my kid get packed for scout camp. Maybe that's #11.

13 comments:

~j. said...

Snape's my favorite.

I'd come to your party.

Sister Pottymouth said...

I'll be there too. Glad to see you blogging again.

So do they make some form of blog fiber? Maybe that would help you be more regular.

Lorien said...

I definitely need some bloggin-blow. Do you have a website to order it?

Lorien said...

hey, i may have just figured out how to italicize!
bold?
don't know

Lorien said...

WHOOO HOOO! I just learned something new.

dalene said...

Don't forget the Senoritah Margaritah!

Don't forget your poor friend who still doesn't have her grow boxes promised oh so many years ago when you are overrun with zuccini, yellow squash and are tempted to take it to DI (remember they don't take food at DI anyway and since we are on the way to DI you can drop any excess off at my house).

I'm with you on Snape, but ever since Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time Books I just keep expecting people to return from the dead.

p.s. How're you coming on your snowballs?

p.p.s. If Ida known you needed help with the italicizing I coulda helped you with that. My next big challenge is learning how to add some color.

dalene said...

Oh and you know what was my favorite part of the wedding decor. The gerbera daisies suspended from the tree.


Perfect!

Sister Pottymouth said...

www.colonblow.com

Poopin' is cool!

The Dally Llama said...

Color, at least in text, is easy to do. Just put "font color=red" or whatever color you want the text to be, in brackets, and don't forget to close your tag (/font)--except in brackets. Or, if you want to get really fancy, you can go to: http://www.december.com/html/spec/color.html to see lots of shades. Just use the number associated with the shade you want instead of the name of the color in your tag. Any time you see something you want to do on someone else's web page, go to the view menu and select view source, or page source, or whatever the browser you use calls it. It will show you all the html for the whole page, and you can see how they did what they did. I usually just copy and paste the html right out of the source code for the effect I'm trying to duplicate.

dalene said...

Thanks Lorien's little bro. That's good to know.

And may I say your latest posts have been quite intriguing? I haven't had the time I want to just read them all together and then sit and absorb them, but I've loved what I've seen so far.

Lorien said...

CW: snowballs--no progress at all yet. And I tried once to deliver you some squash, but you were in Delta or something. I'll catch you again though...we're in full swing production right now. And the dangling daisises were indeed perfect!

Thanks for the html smarts, Dally. You go to law school for a year, and just look what happens. All sortsa techsmarts and claims of climbing tall mountains. Good on ya.

LuckyRedHen said...

"My bushes are 100% better than last year. Almost as good as my 90-year-old neighbor's."

My mind was NOT in the gutter when I read that. I'm bad, aren't I?

LuckyRedHen said...

O.P.I. is AWESOME. I've been using the same O.P.I. toenail polish (I, too, do not paint my fingernails) for at least 5 years.